Healthcare debate shouldn't be secret

People hold up signs protesting cuts and changes to healthcare Saturday, May 20, 2017, during a protest organizated by Indivisible Wichita Falls at the intersection of Kemp and Midwestern Parkway.(Photo: Lauren Roberts/Times Record News)Buy Photo

Senate Republicans are racing to craft an Obamacare replacement bill that could come to a vote by early July.

That wouldn’t leave much — if any — time for hearings. Or for input from stakeholders in this legislation, which includes insurers, medical organizations, business groups and Americans who have gained coverage under Obamacare.

Sound familiar? Remember what then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in the Democratic rush to pass Obamacare in 2010? “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it … ”

Republicans griped about the Democrats’ sprint to shove the bill into law. So they should know that secrecy and haste may bring a narrow partisan victory that invites challenge if and when the other party gains power.

The Senate won’t vote until the Congressional Budget Office evaluates the proposal’s effect on health care coverage — including how many Americans would stand to gain or lose coverage.

But the bill does not have to be public for the CBO to do that. The fear is that the Senate leadership could wait for the CBO report, then immediately bring the bill to the floor for a vote before senators or anyone else had time to gauge its effect on health coverage for millions of Americans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has invoked “Rule XIV, a fast-track procedure that bypasses the committee process and moves the bill directly to the floor,” writes Andy Slavitt, a former acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a Washington Post op-ed. “Moving fast leaves opponents, and the public, with no time to catch up to the details.”

First you vote, then you find out what’s in it.

Yes, there is urgency to craft an alternative to the teetering health law. Some 35,000 people buying Obamacare policies in 45 counties may have no insurers willing to offer policies for next year, The New York Times reports. About 3 million people in 1,388 counties could face take-it-or-leave-it choices from just one insurer, the paper says. Many more Americans fear that soaring premiums will price them out of the market.

That’s why we have backed congressional efforts to forge a better law to offer Americans more choices and states more leeway to help citizens gain coverage.

The House took its shot with the American Health Care Act. Now it’s the Senate’s turn to improve that bill.

Lawmakers are wrangling with a series of tough questions: Will those who have pre-existing conditions still be able to buy insurance, as they do under Obamacare? How and when would Medicaid be scaled back for those who gained coverage in the Obamacare-fueled expansion? What about penalties for those who go without coverage, then try to buy it after they’re sick?

The details shouldn’t be secret until the last minute before a vote.

Congressional hearings often generate more heat than light. But senators need to explain their reasoning, not just kick the legs out from under Obamacare. An Obamacare replacement that cuts costs, adds choices and improves access to health care won’t wilt in congressional sunlight.